


cliche

by drmsqnc



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Connor being Connor, F/M, Fluff, android antics, rain rain go the hell away
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-26
Updated: 2018-06-26
Packaged: 2019-05-28 20:00:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15056699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drmsqnc/pseuds/drmsqnc
Summary: “this better be good.” you wipe water from your forehead. the pouring rain seems to disagree. “this really better be good.”





	cliche

It’s not night yet. Not quite. Nonetheless, the gray clouds above have long since blocked out any resemblance of the fading twilight. 

Rain glows almost neon in the downtown lights - a quickening drizzle that will most certainly return to its previous steady pour if you don’t hurry up. You huff, tie the string of your raincoat tight about your face. Like it matters. You are already soaked straight through.

You groan.

“Why did we have to park so far away?” The sentence miraculously makes its way past your gritted teeth. Narrowing your eyes, you once more try to spot your car through the curtain of water. 

Connor is suspiciously silent. He has been for the last hour or so. This coupled with the frustrating fact that his movements are premeditated, near soundless, causes you to constantly glance to your side to make sure he’s actually still there. 

“You’ll be alright in the rain, yeah?” You ask. The answer is obvious. You know this. He knows this. It doesn’t matter - you’re desperate to maintain some kind of conversation. The quiet is unsettling. It prickles at your skin, fills your mind with the white noise of insecurities. Was it something you’d done earlier? Said? 

Wiggling your toes in your drenched shoes, you bite your lip and chance another look at the android.

There is no response. Your smile strains. 

“Guess we’ll have to run for it.”

You’ve barely taken four steps out from under the safety of the scaffolding when he speaks your name. You come to a stop with a sudden jerk, nearly tripping right over your own two feet as he grips the back of your coat. Of all the  _nerve-_

You struggle fervently in his hold but you might as well be fighting against a rock, because he is not letting go. He doesn’t even look bothered by the effort of holding you there. 

You  _hiss._

_“Connor!”  
_

Your head jolts back to glare up at him, but it backfires majestically when you only manage to get blindsided by a rather well-aimed droplet of rain. You bristle like a feline, stumble back, wrench a hand upwards to rub rapidly at your left eye. 

He says your name a second time, entirely too calm, and you wonder just how bad your fist would break if you punched him right in that infuriatingly handsome face. 

“This better be good.” You wipe water from your forehead. The pouring rain seems to disagree. “This really better be good.”

Connor shifts. It takes you a second, but you eventually realize that the sensation of tiny fists atop your head has gone non-existent. You slowly look up. Connor has an umbrella. 

There’s a pause.

You can’t decide between ‘that’s surprisingly big’, and ‘what the actual hell’.

“What the actual hell.” 

He moves closer, careful to properly adjust the umbrella. You stare. When did he get that? Nevermind when,  _where_ in the world did he manage to pull it from? If he’d had it the whole time you would have definitely seen it at some point.

“Alright, Mary Poppins,” you say in disbelief. “We’ve been skirting around, but something’s wrong with you. It’s time to spill. And while you’re at it, please try not to make me go insane.”

He inhales. You cautiously inch forward, displacing a muddy puddle with a squelch. Exhales. In a rush he mutters something under his breath, low and swarmy. It’s too quick for you to catch; the possibilities scatter almost infinitely. Your eyes meet. And then it doesn’t really matter what he said anyways, because he’s kissing you.

Well. That’s a little bit of an exaggeration.

His lips are hovering, only barely brushing yours. The intention, however, is crystal clear. Through the muddled haze of indecipherable fog that is now your mind, you detect his breath rolling over your skin, the slight give of his nose as it touches your cheek. He’s shaking. You can feel it. Not intimately, no, you aren’t touching, still too far apart, but you can sense the way it trembles the air, makes you itch to claim the space between you and render it nonexistent.

Somewhere, distantly, a light-bulb rears its dusty head. The strange tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon that has been tugging at the end of your subconscious dances into the dark. You chase after it, reach out. Suddenly, with a force you are not prepared for, it crashes over you, knocks you flat on your feet. Your heart stutters. Oh.

Oh.

You laugh.

A snort gets caught somewhere in your throat. It’s an odd, wet strangle of a noise - something trying and failing not to progress to a giggle. Your eyes slip shut for a moment, fluttering incessantly like broken shutters while you attempt to calm yourself.  

Just when you get a leash on your misplaced humour, Connor, oh beautiful,  _beautiful_  Connor, hums. The sound is one he’s made several occasions before, a familiar mixture of curiousity and intrigue. Without even looking, you just  _know_ his brows are slightly furrowed, eyes wide and blown a bright warm chestnut.

His chest rumbles, and then promptly, hesitantly, after an hour of absolutely nothing at all, “Is that a normal response to this display of affection?” 

Your control absolutely snaps. You shake, collapse against his jacket for fear of doubling over as you laugh. And boy, do you laugh. Unrestrained, without so much of a care in the world. Connor patiently waits for you to regain your senses.

“Connor,” you say, and  _god_ you can barely speak, “is this - did you - “ You wheeze. “Is this a  _cliche?”_

Connor has the decency to look embarrassed. He clears his throat. 

“I  _knew_ it. I freaking knew it.” You grin. “When?”

His eyes shift with a sigh. “Precisely twenty minutes and thirty-three seconds into the last case. Though the Lieutenant insists I’ve been, ah, how did he put it, ‘head over heels’ since you were first introduced on the homicide team.” 

“Really?” You are absolutely _beaming_. “I’ve got you beaten.” Connor’s head tilts, and you answer his unasked question. “Been harboring a good ol’ crush from before you even knew I existed.”

“That is…unexpected. You hid it rather well.”

“Oh shut it. Don’t lie to me.”

“I am not-” A glare. “I may have perhaps speculated a few suspicions.”

You feel faint embarrassment but get over it quickly. It’s not unexpected. You are already easy to read human wise; it would be incredibly naive to assume that the perceptive android had been blissfully unaware of your feelings towards him. 

“But even so,” you continue, gleefully dragging out the topic. “A kiss. In the rain. At night. Tell me you bought the umbrella specifically for this too.”

“You are experiencing quite a large amount of pleasure from this.”

“Oh you  _so_  did. Is that why you’ve been silent this whole time?”

Connor frowns. “The probability of receiving reciprocation from you, or of any inclination of a positive outcome whatsoever was not certain to be 100 percent. Despite that, I fully intended to carry out my actions. This lack of logic clashed with everything my internal programming dictated, and so I was left in a strange discord of troubling anticipation.”

You raise an eyebrow. “So you were nervous.”

 “…Yes.” 

“Still doesn’t explain why you resorted to this though.”

Connor slowly rubs his hands together. You’ve been around him long enough to know the motion is absentminded, perhaps a habit of comfort while he thinks. His LED flickers yellow, circles twice.

“I did not have many references of choice, so I consulted the vast expanse of the world wide web for relative advice. I had thought resorting to one of these ‘cliches’ that are seemingly so highly regarded would aid.” 

“Yeah?” You smile. “Well it didn’t work.”

Connor visibly deflates, and you nearly melt right into your shoes at the oblivious puppy dog expression forming. 

“And it will never work,” you say softly. You rest a palm on his chest, your gaze filled with warmth. “I just want you to be yourself. That will always be enough. You will always be enough.” 

Connor doesn’t understand.

He doesn’t understand why he suddenly feels like he cannot breathe, though his oxygen regulators are in perfect working order. He doesn’t understand why the palm you’ve rested right above his primary thirium pump seems to sear heat through his clothes, though that is clearly illogical. He doesn’t understand why he is suddenly hyper focused on the way your left eyebrow arches at a 0.1022222 _repeating_  degree difference from your right, the faded blemish on your cheek, the wrinkles cresting underneath your eyes in your smile. 

The exact moment when your relationship slots into the lover category registers just outside his field of vision, and an unexplainable thrum of  _something_  runs straight through him.  

His own hand reaches up to curl around yours. 

“I am not well experienced in the roles of romance.” Words are escaping him, but he’s not really paying attention. His focus is on the thumb he is using to caress over the cold knuckles of your fingers. Back and forth.

You snort. 

“And you think I am? Not a fat chance. I’m stringing this up as we go along.  _Besides-”_

Connor sees your eyes narrow, catches the way your voice off-tilts. Usually he is clueless towards human inflection, but not this time. It’s an expression he recognizes, one Hank frequently employs whenever he teases him. The next thing you say is bound to be-

“-I already knew you sucked at romance. After all, you called that poor excuse of whatever you did earlier a kiss.” 

You’re baiting him. You are  _baiting_ him and Connor thoroughly allows himself to be pulled along.

“Oh?” His eyes widen, ever so innocent. His thumb is stroking the inside of your palm now, and when you shiver, it definitely isn’t of the cold. “Are you saying you didn’t like it?” 

“I didn’t say that,” you muse. “But it wasn’t a  _kiss_.”

“I apologize,” He murmurs. “Then,” his hand separates from yours to trail the line of your jaw, “may I  _kiss_  you?”

You swallow. His usual hoarse voice is even raspier, like cut pieces of silk over gravel. He looks at you from under his lashes, and the game you two play shimmers as you see the genuine uncertainty in his eyes, the lack of confidence.

You tug him down. “Yes.”

Now, you’re no Connor, but you have some analytical skills of your own, if you do say so yourself. Comes with the job description after all. (Though men like Gavin Reed sometimes make you lose faith in the qualities of a detective, and really on a whole the human race.)

But Connor. Well. 

Connor kisses like he fights.

You cannot think of a better comparison. Every move is executed to the finest detail: the hand cupping the back of your neck, the slow insistence of his mouth form fitting yours. Calculated. Demanding. Your knees buckle as you lose your grip on reality, but he’s already there, already knowing, already predicting, drawing you up against him.

The umbrella hits the ground, long forgotten.

The rain is frigid, but he is so  _warm,_ and why are you surprised, why should he be cold, he is working, functioning,  _existing_. He is a living _–_

-fingers press at the base of where your hairline ends and your neck begins, applying a pressure gentle but firm enough to make you tilt your head back, up _up_ , at a perfect angle for him to change the slant, to drown you deeper, and for a beautiful second your thoughts completely blank out-  

–being and nothing less and everything more. He kisses you again. And again. Unhurried. Deliberate. You keen. 

It’s not fair that he technically doesn’t need to breathe, and for the first in the history of ever it seems the two of you are on the same wavelength because he lets you go. He’s pulling back and placing you on your toes and-

and-

And you’re laughing. Again. 

Connor blinks. “Please don’t make this an occurrence every time we kiss, Detective.”

The laugh is a bit too breathless to really be a laugh, but you make it work. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” Your raincoat is horrendously big, and your eyes must be pink from the water, and he is ridiculously composed, and you are a mess and  _also-_

“I  _can’t_ believe you were worried about this.” You punch him in the arm. You’re entirely sure it hurt you more than it hurt him. “Let’s go. I know you’re waterproof and all but we really shouldn’t test fate.” 

His lips twitch. “So I’m assuming the task was performed to your satisfaction?”

“Ha ha, very funny. Now come on, if you show even  _one_ sign of shorting out I’m sticking you in rice.”

You lead the way, dragging him by the hand. He watches as you interlock his fingers with yours.

He smiles.

“I always accomplish my mission.”

“Well you better accomplish some chicken soup pretty soon because I’m pretty sure I’m going to get a cold from this.” 


End file.
